For the love of pottery
Clayworks, an innovative tale of tiles and pottery items.
KARACHI:
To become a female entrepreneur in Pakistan, let alone in the ceramic industry, requires a lot of guts. But Mahbina Waheed does it with sheer passion.
Clayworks, a Lahore based company, is an innovative business that was started off solely by Waheed in 1999, after borrowing some money from her mother.
Waheed explains that business instincts run deep in her blood as she has “the genes from my grandfather who was a businessman.” Today, she is proud of the fact that she “runs the only ceramic factory owned by a woman entrepreneur, with most of the managerial staff also belonging to the female gender.”
After running her company for 12 years, Waheed, a Smith College graduate believes,“ceramics have always had an appeal. I wanted to make these kinds of ceramics in Pakistan because they are not being made here. We have factories but they make low-end products and don’t have design sense at all.”
Patriotic to the core, Waheed said, “I am a firm believer in making things in Pakistan, hence I am manufacturing here. We should be proud of the label ‘Made in Pakistan’ on our products. Pakistani products can be as appealing as any other!”
The design philosophy behind Clayworks is to be original, creative, fun yet practical. “We make items [for] people, primarily to eat or drink from [but] they also have to be user friendly. Sometimes we are requested by clients to make items that are not practical but look good, so we try to make them see why it would, not work and would in fact cause problems,” she says.
Her all-time favourites are using “traditional Islamic, tribal and ethnic patterns in a new way. Not necessarily just use them in a modern way but implement them to look cool as well. I love going to museums for inspiration and visiting historical sites. So we have many shapes and design-based on this theme. I am a firm believer in using our culture and history in modern products.” Waheed adds, “I like traditional pottery but not all. I work using traditional pottery with new quality and finish.”
When asked what items are available at Clayworks, Waheed says, “Anything you would need to eat out of, drink from or serve from like, plates, bowls, mugs, tea sets, teacups, platters, serving dishes, condiment pots etc. We also make decorative items like vases, oil burners and some garden items. And now decorative tiles as well!”
Waheed is currently involved in a project in Lahore about which she says, “At the moment [I am supplying tiles for] a mosque being built in Lahore. It’s a tiny mosque but it is designed on traditional Islamic patterns. We use old techniques but have made the tiles with better durability and finish. It’s quite a challenge.”
Social networking site Facebook has allowed Waheed “to share new products with clients and get their feedback. Though, the page is only a year old, it’s a new tool for interacting with our clients. It has helped our clients in letting us now that we have to open a Karachi outlet now! We also get to tell them about promotions, new items, share our ideas, etc.”
Currently working on an interesting project, Waheed says, “We are working on a line for kids, again by popular demand, like decorative items and eating platters. We get a lot of feedback on our Facebook page so we try to implement as much of it as possible.”
With the opening of her new shop in Karachi by September this year, Waheed has high hopes and would like to see “every household in Pakistan to have beautiful crockery to eat and drink from!”
Published in The Express Tribune, June 9th, 2011.
To become a female entrepreneur in Pakistan, let alone in the ceramic industry, requires a lot of guts. But Mahbina Waheed does it with sheer passion.
Clayworks, a Lahore based company, is an innovative business that was started off solely by Waheed in 1999, after borrowing some money from her mother.
Waheed explains that business instincts run deep in her blood as she has “the genes from my grandfather who was a businessman.” Today, she is proud of the fact that she “runs the only ceramic factory owned by a woman entrepreneur, with most of the managerial staff also belonging to the female gender.”
After running her company for 12 years, Waheed, a Smith College graduate believes,“ceramics have always had an appeal. I wanted to make these kinds of ceramics in Pakistan because they are not being made here. We have factories but they make low-end products and don’t have design sense at all.”
Patriotic to the core, Waheed said, “I am a firm believer in making things in Pakistan, hence I am manufacturing here. We should be proud of the label ‘Made in Pakistan’ on our products. Pakistani products can be as appealing as any other!”
The design philosophy behind Clayworks is to be original, creative, fun yet practical. “We make items [for] people, primarily to eat or drink from [but] they also have to be user friendly. Sometimes we are requested by clients to make items that are not practical but look good, so we try to make them see why it would, not work and would in fact cause problems,” she says.
Her all-time favourites are using “traditional Islamic, tribal and ethnic patterns in a new way. Not necessarily just use them in a modern way but implement them to look cool as well. I love going to museums for inspiration and visiting historical sites. So we have many shapes and design-based on this theme. I am a firm believer in using our culture and history in modern products.” Waheed adds, “I like traditional pottery but not all. I work using traditional pottery with new quality and finish.”
When asked what items are available at Clayworks, Waheed says, “Anything you would need to eat out of, drink from or serve from like, plates, bowls, mugs, tea sets, teacups, platters, serving dishes, condiment pots etc. We also make decorative items like vases, oil burners and some garden items. And now decorative tiles as well!”
Waheed is currently involved in a project in Lahore about which she says, “At the moment [I am supplying tiles for] a mosque being built in Lahore. It’s a tiny mosque but it is designed on traditional Islamic patterns. We use old techniques but have made the tiles with better durability and finish. It’s quite a challenge.”
Social networking site Facebook has allowed Waheed “to share new products with clients and get their feedback. Though, the page is only a year old, it’s a new tool for interacting with our clients. It has helped our clients in letting us now that we have to open a Karachi outlet now! We also get to tell them about promotions, new items, share our ideas, etc.”
Currently working on an interesting project, Waheed says, “We are working on a line for kids, again by popular demand, like decorative items and eating platters. We get a lot of feedback on our Facebook page so we try to implement as much of it as possible.”
With the opening of her new shop in Karachi by September this year, Waheed has high hopes and would like to see “every household in Pakistan to have beautiful crockery to eat and drink from!”
Published in The Express Tribune, June 9th, 2011.